Vancouveriste left a comment on my Bees and the Netherlands post and asked if I knew anything about Mason bees as home garden pollinators, and I must admit I don’t. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of these? Are these too experiencing CCD, I wonder?
Heirloom Gardening, Food and Other Thoughts
Hi,
I just heard of these little bees on Saturday at the local Whole Foods market. I did find a couple of references
This one an older article from Simon Fraser University which is in the Vancouver area:
http://www.sfu.ca/mediapr/sfnews/1999/Feb4/bees.html
And this one that is from a university in the Netherlands:
http://pollinator.com/masn.htm
We won’t have a garden this year, but will be looking into mason bees next year. Maybe they will be just what your pear tree needs.
Thanks! Those articles look really interesting.
They’re very effective pollinators which can easily be encouraged by giving them places to nest. Thre’s a good little book available; ‘The Red Mason Bee: Taking the Sting out of Beekeeping’ by Chris O’Toole. It seems to be out of print but there are second-hand copies around. Nesters for these are easy to find.